She recalls a 15-year-old boy who came in to her clinic asking for a hug, because he knew he’d soon be shot dead, and Staggers was the only person he trusted to hold him. The doctor tried to intervene by placing him in a 72-hour involuntary hold, only to hear he’d been killed upon release.

Then there was the 18-year-old female who came in with a broken ankle. She’d jumped naked out of a second-story window after refusing her pimp’s demands to recruit 12- and 15-year-old girls into prostitution.

“I cannot recruit little girls to do what I’m forced to do,” Staggers recalled her saying. “I cannot do it. I’d rather die.”

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